The McGuffin Incident
by Red Witch
Summary: When fooling around in Shipwreck's loot stash the guys accidentally unleash a certain imaginary Coyote from Lance's mind. And then things start to get weird.


**I don't own any GI Joe or X-Men Evolution characters. Just another wonderful strange fic that came into my tiny mind folks after some of you wonderful readers suggested a possible idea. See I do listen! It just takes me a while to get it all done. **

**The McGuffin Incident**

"What the heck is this thing?" Todd looked at the object in his hands. He, Fred and Xi were in the kitchen looking at it on the kitchen table. 

"It looks like some kind of battery," Xi remarked.

"Nah I think it's one of those camp flashlight things yo," Todd said scratching his head. 

"I don't think so," Fred remarked. "Wonder what it really is?"

"Well only one way to find out," Todd looked around. "Now how do you turn this thing on?" 

"How about we just bash it instead?" Fred suggested. 

"Here's a hammer," Xi handed Todd one. 

"Good idea," Todd held it up. That's when Roadblock and Lance walked into the room. 

"Hey kids," Roadblock casually walked in and took out a soda. He turned around and took a sip when he saw what they were about to do. He spat out the soda. "STOP!" 

"What?" Todd asked as he held the raised hammer above his head. 

"Are you out of your tiny little head?" Roadblock ran over and grabbed the hammer. "Why don't you just play with grenades instead? And no Blob you cannot play with the grenades!" 

"We were just trying to figure out what this thing is," Todd told him.

"By smashing it to pieces?" Roadblock asked.

"Yeah that sounds like their usual modus operandi," Lance snickered. "So what is this thing?"

"We don't know," Fred told him. "We found it in Shipwreck's closet." 

"If it was in Shipwreck's closet it could be anything," Roadblock grumbled as he looked at it. "But a bell it does seem to ring. I have seen this before I know it."

"Hey what does that button do?" Todd pointed.

"Don't touch it!" Lance shouted at him.

"I just wanna see!" Todd whined. 

"No way!" Lance grabbed it out of Roadblock's hands. "Just back off!" 

"Lance!" Roadblock shouted. 

Todd went after Lance and grabbed the other end of the device. Soon both of them were in a tug of war. "I just wanna see!" Todd shouted.

"Let go Toad!" Lance shouted.

"You let go!" Todd shouted back. In their pulling Todd accidentally pushed a button. "Oops…" 

"Oh no…" Lance gulped as the device started to hum.

"You can have it now Lance!" Todd let go and hopped away just in time before the device went off, leaving Lance holding it. 

It glowed and seemed to be drawing something out of him. Lance screamed and suddenly threw the thing into the wall. Lance fell down on the ground in a faint. "Lance!" Roadblock ran over. "Are you okay?"

"I think so…" Lance blinked. "What is that thing?" 

"Is it a bomb?" Fred gulped as he looked at the machine in the wall. 

"Nah," A voice sounding like Pietro's spoke. "It's a bit more complicated than that."

"What is it Pietro?" Xi looked around. "Pietro?"

"Oh no…" Lance groaned and his eyes widened. 

They all looked at where Lance was looking. Sitting right before them was a silver coyote with a grin on its lips. "Oh yes! It's me! Wonderful me!" 

"What the heck?" Todd's jaw dropped. "Is that a dog?"

"No I am not a dog Wart Boy!" The Coyote rolled his eyes. He stood on his hind legs and rapped Todd lightly on the head with one of his paws. "I am a coyote. I know this is tough for your little mind but do try to keep up will ya?" 

"Now I remember what that is," Roadblock groaned. 

"You guys can see him too?" Lance asked. "I thought he was just a figment of my imagination!"

"He is, that's what that device does," Roadblock sighed. "It's called the McGuffin Device. It gives a person's innermost thoughts and fantasies solid form."

"Huh?" Fred blinked.

"Here's the deal, it makes thoughts real," Roadblock explained. 

"Bingo!" The Coyote grinned. 

"This is what you hallucinate sometimes?" Xi asked. "Not quite what I would have expected."

"Yeah I would have thought that Kitty in a swimsuit would be more your style," Todd told him. 

"Please!" Coyote snorted. Suddenly he appeared in a pair of swim trunks and struck a pose. "Who could top a body like this?" 

"Will you knock it off!" Lance shouted. "You are embarrassing me!" 

"How can I embarrass you?" Coyote asked. "You made me remember? I come from your mind! I know it's not much of a mind but…" 

"Shut up!" Lance shouted.

"You shut up," The Coyote made a face at him.

"Stop it!" Lance snapped.

"Stop it!" Coyote mimicked him.

"You're really asking for it!" 

"You're really asking for it!"

"Stop saying everything I say!"

"Stop saying everything **I** say!" 

"Stupid Coyote!"

"Stupid Lance!" 

"Shut up!"

"Shut up!" 

"You are an idiot!" 

"Me? I'm not the one arguing with a figment of his imagination."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!" Lance screamed. 

"You know this is kind of fun," Todd snickered. 

"Well fun's over!" Lance snapped. "Shut this thing off!" 

"I can't!" Roadblock fiddled with it. "And what's worse it's fused to the wall somehow!" 

"Oh great!" Lance groaned. "What do we do now?"

"How about a nice game of three card Monte?" The Coyote appeared with a dealer's table and cards. He had a dealer's visor on his head and was dealing. "Okay who wants to win the money? Step right up and place your bets!" 

"Um, I'm going to go call General Hawk," Roadblock sighed. "Just wait here will you?" 

"Don't worry we're not gonna miss this show," Todd snickered. "Xi get the camera!"

"No you will not!" Lance told him. Of course Xi ignored this.

"What jealous that I'm more photogenic than you are?" Coyote snickered. 

"Hey guys did any of you see my…?" Pietro ran in and stopped as he looked at the scene. "What the…?"

"Hey Speedy!" Coyote waved "How's it going dude?" 

"What is that?" Pietro asked.

"Lance's imaginary Coyote friend," Todd said simply. 

"He's real now," Fred told him. 

"I see…" Pietro looked at them uneasily.

"Yeah I know it's hard to believe any information from those two," Coyote told him. "But I really am real. See my gorgeous fur? Go on pet it! Pet it! It's so soft and silky! Go on! I know you're dying too!" 

"Uh maybe later," Pietro said. "Man Lance couldn't you imagine something with a less whiny voice?"

"Pietro," Lance looked at him. "He sounds exactly like you."

"He does not," Pietro huffed. 

"Uh yeah he does," Todd told him.

"Uh no he doesn't," Pietro snapped. 

"Trust us Pietro he sounds exactly like you," Lance rolled his eyes. "You would have thought that a guy who loves to hear himself talk would know what he sounds like." 

"He does not sound anything like me!" Pietro snapped.

"I'll say I don't," Coyote said. "My voice is much deeper than his. More melodious too."

"It does not!" Pietro snapped. 

"Does too!" Coyote said.

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

"Does not infinity!" 

"Does too infinity plus twelve!"

"Does not infinity plus twenty!"

"Does too infinity plus twenty times forty seven!" 

"Great now my friends are fighting with my imaginary friend!" Lance groaned as he put his head into his hands. "How did I get such a screwed up life?" 

Both Pietro and the Coyote looked at him. "Do you want the short list or the long?" They said at the exact same time. "Hey that's **my **line!" 

That's when Althea, Xi, and Wanda walked into the room. "I don't believe it," Wanda shook her head. "There really is an imaginary coyote that sounds like my brother."

"Told you," Xi was filming them with a camera.

"I do not sound like him!" Both Pietro and the Coyote shouted at the same time. 

"There is no way I sound like this prissy little loon," Coyote said.

"Prissy? _Prissy?" _Pietro screamed. He started to roll up his sleeves. "I'll prissy you…you imaginary flea farm!"

"Bring it on!" Coyote taunted. 

Roadblock, Shipwreck, Low Light and Spirit walked into the room. "Oh great!" Low Light grumbled. "What have you idiots done now?" 

"Lance made us a new friend to play with," Fred told them. 

"Yeah courtesy of the McGuffin Device," Roadblock pointed. "Shipwreck don't keep these things in your closet, that's my advice!"

"You went through my closet?" Shipwreck glared at them. 

"Yeah Dad that's really wrong of them to go through your personal space where you hide all your stolen loot," Althea quipped.

"That's right!" Shipwreck said before he realized what he had agreed to. "The point is you kids shouldn't have been fooling around with this stuff! It's dangerous!" 

"Well you shouldn't have put it where little hands could easily get at it," Todd said innocently.

"Your little butt is gonna get it in a minute…" Shipwreck growled.

"Shut up Shipwreck!" Roadblock glared at him. "He has a point you know!" 

"Yeah it's bad enough you steal this kind of stuff from the vault all the time but to leave it in the house where Toad and any one of the other little maniacs who live here can get it?" Low Light grumbled. "Why don't you just give them some dynamite to play with while you're at it?" 

"Hey can we…?" Fred started to say.

"NO FRED YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY DYNAMITE!" All the adults shouted at him. 

"Okay I was just asking," Fred shuffled his feet. "No need to yell." 

"So how do we turn this thing off?" Lance asked. 

"We can't but Airtight and the other tech specialists can," Spirit told them. "He helped design this machine in the first place."

"Why am I not surprised?" Roadblock said. "Unfortunately they won't be back until tomorrow evening." 

"So what do we do in the meantime?" Lance asked.

"SLUMBER PARTY!" The Coyote ran upstairs. He ran as fast as Pietro.

"Of course he would have to have the same powers as Quicksilver!" Low Light groaned. 

"Two of them in the same house…" Spirit sighed. "Oy vey…" 

Ten minutes later Lance was still in the kitchen with Althea and Todd. "You can't avoid him forever yo," Todd told Lance. 

"I can't understand how that stupid imaginary animal is able to have the full run of the house!" Lance groaned.

"Maybe because the McGuffin Device is imbedded into the wall?" Althea pointed.

"Great," Lance sighed. "Guess I'll sleep outside tonight." 

"LANCE!" Wanda stormed into the room. "Your imaginary friend just ate my slippers!" 

"He is not my friend!" Lance told her. 

"Well what is he?" Todd asked. "Your imaginary enemy?" 

"You know that would sound ridiculous for anybody except Lance," Althea said. 

"Well whatever he is tell him to knock it off!" Wanda snapped. 

"WHEEEE!" The Coyote ran by. "Can't catch me!" 

"Come back here you crazy coyote!" Pietro ran after him at equally high speed. Of course everything blew everywhere. 

"I hate my life…" Lance moaned. "I hate my life…"

"We're not too crazy about your life either right now," Low Light said as he and the rest of the Misfits joined them. Spirit and Roadblock were with them. "Especially Shipwreck. I don't know how something without opposable thumbs managed to glue Shipwreck's butt to the toilet but…" 

"I don't wanna know," Roadblock sighed. The Coyote and Pietro ran into the room. "STOP! Okay what did he do to you Pietro?" 

"He ruined my best outfit," Pietro glared at the Coyote. 

"So it's got a few holes and stains on it," The Coyote waved. "It wasn't your best color anyway." 

"Okay that is it!" Lance stormed over to the Coyote. "Knock it off right now! I've had it with you embarrassing me and causing havoc!" 

"Yeah that's our job!" Fred said. 

"Embarrassed huh?" Coyote looked at him. "More embarrassed than the time you got stuck in a tree when you were eleven and you cried for four hours straight…after you were rescued?"

"I was just a little kid!" Lance fumed. 

"You weren't when you dressed up like a knight and tried to serenade your precious Kitty Cat," Coyote snickered. Lance lunged at him but the Coyote easily eluded him. "And such original lyrics too!" 

"Knock it off!" Lance shouted. 

"Oh Kitty, my pretty Kitty," Coyote mocked. "My heart rocks for only you my pretty Kitty…" 

"SPIRIT MAKE HIM STOP!" Lance shouted. 

"My god," Roadblock gulped. "Lance is more screwed up than we thought!" 

"All right this just isn't funny anymore," Althea sighed. "We gotta shut that thing off." 

"But Airtight and the other experts won't be back until tomorrow," Roadblock explained. "Meanwhile we gotta put up with this sorrow!"

"And then there was the time you wet the bed when you were fifteen…" The Coyote went on. Lance screamed and the entire house shook. 

"I don't think Lance can wait that long," Todd remarked.

"I don't think the house can wait that long," Xi added. 

"ENOUGH!" Low Light shouted. "If you want something done right you gotta do it yourself!" He left the kitchen. He came back with a gun. He fired it point blank at the McGuffin Device into the wall.

"AAAAA!" The Coyote screamed as he fizzled away. "I'm melting! I'm melting! What a world! What a world!" Then he disappeared. 

"There!" Low Light holstered his gun. "Problem solved." 

"Low Light you can't always solve a problem with a gun!" Spirit groaned.

"No but it's amazing how many you **can** solve with one," Low Light calmly walked out of the room. 

"Thank god the nightmare is over!" Lance groaned. 

"Come now Lance," Spirit patted Lance on the shoulder and guided him out of the room. "Why don't we have a nice quiet lie down and I'll see if I can get you some medication?"

"Make it a double!" Lance moaned as they left. 

"Okay guys," Althea said. "We will never speak of this. Ever."

"Fine with me," Pietro told her. Then he whispered to her. "You did get it on video didn't you?"

"Oh yeah," Althea nodded as she pointed to a small hidden camera. 

"You videotaped it?" Roadblock overheard them. "What do you kids do? Videotape everything in the whole house?"

"Well yeah," Pietro and the others looked at him with weird expressions.

"Duh," Fred rolled his eyes.

"And what else do you have on those…" Roadblock began. Then he walked away. "Never mind I don't want to know!" 


End file.
